City Government

Michael Sarbanes, executive director of one of Baltimore's leading neighborhood and regional advocacy groups, will announce today he is running for City Council president - a move that will likely draw significant attention to the city's second-most prominent political race this year. As director of the Citizens Planning and Housing Association since 2003 - and a former attorney with the Community Law Center - Sarbanes has become a well-known promoter of the city's most troubled neighborhoods.

JUST 30 YEARS AGO, Baltimore's mayor had the kind of power that would make a king in a small country proud. Baltimore had 900,000 residents, and the city government employed 33,000 workers. In addition, the city government controlled a hospital, an airport, a jail, a community college, a municipal market system, a stadium and an arena.But a steady population decline during the past three decades has led to the erosion of Baltimore's tax base, forcing the city to privatize some agencies and to turn over others to the state.

Baltimore voters casting ballots for mayoral candidates in the fall might not be electing the person who will run the city.Three mayoral candidates say that if elected they would hire an administrator to handle the daily operation of city government.The proposal is being pushed by candidates such as Council President Lawrence A. Bell III and former East Baltimore Councilman Carl Stokes. It is a growing trend among local governments. Across the country, 676 mayors supervise city administrators.

In 1923, Baltimore businessman William J. Casey recommended that 25 of the city's largest businesses send their experts to City Hall to make city government more efficient.Mayor Howard J. Jackson took Casey up on the challenge, creating the Commission on Governmental Efficiency and Economy Inc.Almost 25 years after the group disbanded in 1975, a new movement is growing among city residents and business leaders who want to play a role in improving the city's troubled finances. The organization, created on the same Casey principle, is the Baltimore Efficiency and Economy Foundation Inc., a nonprofit arm of the Baltimore Homeowners Coalition.

Raising police standardMartin O'Malley became the Democratic candidate for mayor of Baltimore on the strength of his promise of reform, especially in the area of public safety.When he announced his candidacy in June, Mr. O'Malley called for "quality of life" policing, but carefully noted that this does not mean indiscriminate arrest.After a young man was killed by police officers during a recent arrest scuffle, however, Mr. O'Malley's opponents quickly accused him of endorsing the sort of "zero-tolerance" policy that in other cities has reduced murder rates, but increased police harassment.

SOMETIME after the cheering has ceased, and the new mayor has been sworn into office on Dec. 7, Martin O'Malley will sit down with his budget director, Edward Gallagher, and face a stark reality."

RECENTLY, William Donald Schaefer lost his longtime companion, Hilda Mae Snoops. State politics paused to pay its respects. Then Mr. Schaefer heard from his other longtime companion: Baltimore. It was still there for him.A new poll shows that of the nine probable candidates for mayor, City Council President Lawrence Bell is the clear favorite. However, if Mr. Schaefer were to enter the contest, he would beat Mr. Bell, 32 to 23 percent, a margin that easily exceeds the Gonzales/Arscott Research and Communications Inc.'s 5 percent margin of error for the survey.

Sheila Dixon can't stand for things to be out of order.Not in her Hunting Ridge home, not in her office on Redwood Street. Nowhere.So a few weeks ago when she saw some old mattresses and a chest of drawers blocking traffic on Edmondson Avenue, she whipped out her cellular telephone and called a city department she thought would quickly remove the trash.The runaround she got only intensified her desire to put things in order in Baltimore, a city she has lived in all of her life. A city that she knows is, in some respects, out of order.

THESE are edited excerpts of responses by some Democratic candidates for mayor of Baltimore to a Sun questionnaire. Additional Democratic responses will be published tomorrow. Republican candidate responses will run on Friday.Martin O'MalleyOn mayoral style: I will be an activist mayor, committed to returning urgency and accountability to the work of city government. I will look to other cities for policies that work, and reach out to innovators in our community to address problems affecting the livability of our city.

Martin O'Malley's post-election honeymoon ends at high noon today when he is sworn in as Baltimore's 47th mayor.Some of his predecessors had time for on-the-job training. The 36-year-old Mr. O'Malley won't enjoy this luxury. Baltimoreans want him to roll up his sleeves and immediately attack such challenges as the city's out-of-control murder rate. He is expected to make swift decisions and demonstrate the ability to govern after eight years as a councilman.Twelve years ago, many had unrealistically high expectations of Kurt L. Schmoke, the former state's attorney and Rhodes scholar, who became the city's first elected African-American mayor.

Baltimore city government would be closed for five days between October and June as most workers participate in a new furlough plan that the city's spending board will be asked to approve this week to help plug a $60.2 million gap in the city's $2.3 billion budget. Firefighters and police also would have to accept furloughs or equivalent reductions to make the cost-saving program work, city officials said, but union leaders are resisting any plan that takes their members off the streets, arguing that further cuts to their agencies would endanger the public.

The inspector general's office is an obscure Baltimore agency, but it is the only one whose funds were slashed this week by the City Council, even as it backed away from plans to trim other offices. Intended as a watchdog that roots out waste, fraud and abuse in city government, the office, headed by Hilton L. Green, instead has developed a reputation for being unproductive - leaving its $500,000 budget a prime target for cuts. Questions about Green's office began circulating at City Hall shortly after he released his office's first annual report in February - a year and a half late and light on accomplishments.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's plan to create a quasi-government agency to sell city-owned vacant land is facing opposition from elected leaders worried that the organization could conduct its business outside public scrutiny and wouldn't be financially viable. Dixon envisions a nonprofit Land Bank Authority, partially modeled on a successful program in Michigan, that would take the titles to many of the 10,000 city-owned vacant lots and houses and sell them to responsible buyers. Handling the sales process outside the immediate scope of city government would cut the red tape associated with purchasing land, she says.

How can city leaders take a raise now? In this horrendous economic atmosphere in which masses of workers are being laid off, furloughed or fired or just can't find jobs, it is incredible that the leaders of city government are going to be enjoying a raise ("City officials quietly OK raises for one another," Dec. 10). It is beyond belief that Mayor Sheila Dixon and other city officials can take these raises when so many city workers are having to tighten their already strangling belts.

Annapolis Mayor Ellen O. Moyer says talk about changing the capital city's government seems to come and go about every 20 years or so. Other City Hall veterans figure it's more like every other year - five commissions or task forces in the past 13 years - says Alderman Richard E. Israel, a Ward 1 Democrat. And Alderman Sheila Finlayson, a Democrat from Ward 4, remembers a handful of task-force reports in recent years - most of them probably shelved and gathering dust. No matter who's doing the counting, the issue is likely to dominate the City Council next few weeks as lawmakers wrangle with three proposals aimed at shaking up city government.

Michael Sarbanes, executive director of one of Baltimore's leading neighborhood and regional advocacy groups, will announce today he is running for City Council president - a move that will likely draw significant attention to the city's second-most prominent political race this year. As director of the Citizens Planning and Housing Association since 2003 - and a former attorney with the Community Law Center - Sarbanes has become a well-known promoter of the city's most troubled neighborhoods.

Civil rights suit to bar city hearing on arrests Baltimore City Councilman James B. Kraft said yesterday that a civil rights lawsuit filed against the city for its arrest policies will prevent him from convening a hearing on the issue. Kraft, chairman of the council's public safety subcommittee, based his assessment on a legal opinion issued this week by a top city lawyer, who advised against holding the hearing because testimony from police officials "would risk severe prejudice" to the city and other defendants.

Annapolis Mayor Ellen O. Moyer began her second term by pledging "the most inclusive, participatory and insightful planning process ever" in the development of a new 10-year master plan for the city. Following a bruising re-election campaign in which her opponents criticized her style as heavy-handed, Moyer used her swearing-in Monday to reach out to the city council, which has five new members. "Let's build bridges in the face of differences, not with complaints and criticism but through discovering our common ground and collective wisdom," said Moyer, 69. She said her top priority would be leading a "communitywide great conversation" on "Annapolis Vision 2018," a comprehensive plan that will take effect in 2008 and serve as a guide for the city government.

Retired city government workers will pay more for medical coverage next year under a $267 million health care package approved yesterday by the Board of Estimates. Retirees account for 55.3 percent of the city government's health care costs, which are rising. In 2006, coverage for 12,000 active and 17,000 retired employees is expected to be $23.9 million - 9.9 percent more than the projected costs of the city's plan this year, according to the city's Department of Human Resources. Active employees, through union negotiations, now pay premiums after years of nearly free coverage.

It seems as if there would be no question that the U.S. Naval Academy, located in the heart of historic Annapolis and one of its oldest institutions, is part of the city. But legally, the 388-acre academy exists as a separate property outside city boundaries; the federal government owns and administers it. That would change, however, under a bill introduced by Mayor Ellen O. Moyer at a city council meeting Monday night that would make all federal property within the existing city limits a part of Annapolis.